The Progress of Salvation
Romans 8:29-30
Out text for today is again from Romans 8. We've been discussing the fact that our salvation is eternal. So many people debate about the issue of whether you can lose your salvation. That is sad because the text of this chapter is so clear about the believer's security. In fact, these three verses, verses 28, 29 and 30, really sum up the most powerful statement of security in the Bible.
text
Now we noted in verse 28 that the word "good" refers to final glory. God causes all things to work together for good, eternal glory or ultimate glory. Now that ultimate glory is predetermined by God and God works out its fulfillment. All of that is sort of summed up at the end of verse 28 in the phrase "according to His purpose."
God causes all things to work together for our eternal glory because that is what He has determined to be His purpose. We are forever secure because that is the way God planned it.
Now as we come to verses 29 and 30 we begin to read the explanation of the phrase "according to His purpose."
If you're a believer, everything in your life is working toward your eternal glory. The Holy Spirit is interceding for you, verses 26 and 27, and the Lord Jesus is interceding for you, verse 34, at the right hand of God so that we might be brought to glory because that is God's purpose. Every member of the trinity is involved in fulfilling the divine purpose that we who believe might be brought to glory.
Now in response to that truth, that God causes all things to bring us to eternal glory because that's the way He planned it, Paul then writes in verse 31, "If God is for us, who is against us?"
In other words, if God, who is the supreme power of the universe, is working out this plan, who could ever prevent it from being fulfilled? Answer: no one. We are secure eternally in the purpose of God.
That makes all kinds of sense when you understand that salvation is God’s plan to begin with.
So much of modern evangelism today fails to grasp this. Somehow or another, we’ve come to the conclusion that the eternal destiny of people is based upon a decision that they make. That is much too inadequate. An unsaved person is dead in trespasses and sin and utterly unable to respond to the gospel. The god of this world has blinded his mind. He is ignorant. He is the captive to sin.
In fact, according to 1 Corinthians 2:14, "A natural man," that's an unconverted man, "does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness to him, he cannot understand them."
So then, on our own, we can't make that decision. It's impossible.
Salvation has to be initiated by God. John 6, verse 44 says, "No one can come to Me," Jesus said, "unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day."
That is the process in a nutshell. You can't be saved, you can't make a decision for Christ unless the Father draws you and whoever comes to Christ in response to that drawing, Christ will raise to eternal glory. And nobody gets lost in the middle.
The plan of God from eternity past was not to get us started, but to get us finished. That's why we often hear the little expression, "The Lord is not finished me yet." He's taking us from justification through sanctification and all the way to glorification.
We saw that last time in Romans 8:29. The purpose of salvation, according to verse 29, is that we might become conformed to the image of His Son.
Today I want to talk about the progress of salvation. Notice how the plan unfolds in verses 29 and 30.
There's the progression. Paul is outlining the unfolding eternal purpose of God in five steps.
Foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification and glorification. Those are very, very important to understand because once you grab hold of those five words you will be able to grasp the progress of God's unfolding saving purpose.
Now this is deep water. . .
Let's take step one.
1. Foreknowledge
"For whom He foreknew." Foreknowledge is the first one because it is the most foundational or the most essential.
God’s purpose in bringing men and women to eternal glory to demonstrate the image of Christ begins with foreknowledge.
Now what does that mean? When you hear the word "foreknowledge," what do you think of?
Well, let me give you some options. Some people think it means foresight. It means that God, because He is God and knows everything, past, present and future, can look down through history that hasn't happened yet and see who was going to believe and He could see who was going to decide for Christ and who was not. And once He looked down through history and saw what all of us were going to do, then He predestined those whom He saw were going to believe to be saved based on what He saw they were going to do.
And there is some truth to that. He can see history before it happens.
He can write it before it happens, and He has. He knows everything.
The problem with that doctrine is this: Sinful man is wicked, ignorant, blind, unable to understand the truth, unable to understand the gospel, unable to comprehend God, unable to get past his iniquity, hates God, is God's enemy, loves his wickedness, is dead in trespasses and sins can't make the decision for Christ in and of himself. That's the first thing we have to recognize.
Secondly, if the idea is that God just left people to their own choosing, and responded to what they were going to do, then why did God create them to begin with? That’s rather cruel and unjust. If God knew people were going to choose against Him and go to hell forever, why did He create them?
And if you say He didn't have any power over whether they were created or not, you really have a problem because now you have a God that's less than sovereign. You have a God that's not the King of the universe and He's not in control, and that's not the God of the Bible.
Then there’s this: If He just looks down the road and sees some people choosing to believe, from where did the faith to believe come? Is it natural for an unregenerate, wicked, blind, hopeless, helpless sinner to all of a sudden exercise saving faith in Jesus Christ?
It’s not only unnatural, it’s scripturally impossible. It can't happen. The terminology is dead in trespasses and sins, cannot understand the things of God, blinded, ignorant, hopeless, helpless, desperately wicked, no knowledge of God is in them. They love darkness.
So no doubt, God has foresight, but that's not what the word "foreknowledge" means.
Some people suggest it means foreordained. It means that God just says, "I decree that such-and- such is going to be saved." After all, it says in 1 Peter 1 verse 1, "Who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father."
But there's more to it than that. That concept of the choosing and election of God is included in the doctrine of predestination. But there's more than that in the word "foreknowledge."
The word "foreknowledge," is connected to our word “horizon” and it speaks of pre-determined boundaries or limits that are marked out.
It means that God pre-decided a course of action and marked off the boundaries of that action. Foreknowledge doesn't just mean God knows what's going to happen, but there is a pre-decided course of action with the boundaries and limits marked out, that equals foreknowledge.
So “foreordained” is closer than “foresight” but that still doesn't say enough.
It is true that God in His omniscience can see down all the eons of history. And it is true that God in His foreknowledge has predetermined and preordained the flow of what is going to happen. But there's another component in this that I want to bring to you and that is this.
The concept of foreknowledge embraces the idea of a predetermination not just to take a course of action, but to take a course of action motivated by love. It’s not just random and arbitrary, but it means to predetermine an expression of love.
Now that is extremely important. Our God is a God of love. What He does is motivated by love. What He determines is bathed in His love. And foreknowledge is a predetermined, foreordained, foreseen love relationship borne in the eternal purpose of God. And the key to understanding that is found in the word “knowing”.
Throughout Scripture the concept of knowing is more than information.
In Amos chapter 3, there is a very simple statement, where God is speaking to Israel. "You only have I known among all the families of the earth."
Now does that mean that the families of the earth, of all the families of the earth they're the only ones He knows about? No, it's not information here, it's predetermination. In fact the NAS translates the word "know" here as "chosen." So there is that foreordaining aspect. But behind that idea of knowing is a very intimate truth.
Go back in the book of Genesis and it says, "Cain knew his wife."
Now that means more than he knew who she was, or where she was, or what she was like because it follows it by saying, "Cain knew his wife and she bore a son." The word "know" is used sort of like a euphemism in Scripture to express the most intimate expressions of love.
Joseph, you remember, in the New Testament was shocked when Mary was pregnant because "He had never known her."
The concept of knowing then carries that beautiful, intimate love that brings two together. It has the idea of caring for someone.
In Hosea 13:5, "I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of draught." The NAS translates it "cared for you," but that’s a bad translation. It's the word "know." I knew you. There's a wonderful intimate expression in the word "know”.
You see it in the New Testament as well. Listen to 1 Corinthians 8:3. "But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him." Now from a standpoint of knowledge, you don't have to love God to be information in His infinite mind, He knows everybody on the face of the earth.
But here's knowing in an intimate sense."If anyone loves God he is known by Him," in the sense of an intimate love relationship.
You remember in Matthew chapter 7, "Many will say to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' then I will say unto them, 'Depart from Me, I never knew you.'" Does He mean I don't know who you are or I never heard of you? Where did you come from? You're not on the list. No.
He means I don't have any intimate relationship with you. I don't have any love relationship with you. I don't belong to you or you to Me.
When you become a Christian you become known to God, not as information, but in intimacy.
John 10:14, "My sheep hear My voice and I know them." It's an absolutely beautiful concept. In 2 Timothy 2:19 it says, "The Lord knows those who are His.”
So, back to Romans chapter 8, when you see the word "foreknowledge" there, of course there is a foreordaining element to it, and of course there is a foresight element to it as God can see down the path.
But there is also a fore-love in it. God foreordains, predetermines to love a certain person, a predetermined, foreordained, foreseen love relationship born in the eternal purpose of God. That's whom He foreknew.
So what you have is this: God has a purpose and that purpose is to express His love to sinners. He predetermines on the basis of His purpose to express His love to sinners He foreordained unto salvation. They will be the recipients of His eternal intimacy, His eternal love and will be conformed to the image of His Son.
The second word is found in verses 29 and 30 and it is the word
2. Predestined
It starts with this foreordaining, foreseeing, fore-loving, that's step one. Those people whom He foreordained to a love relationship, to a relationship of loving intimacy He predestinated.
The word means to “mark out”. He marked them out, wrote their names down.
Those whom He predetermined to love, He predestined, according to Ephesians 1:5, to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
God's love for us caused Him to choose us.
He marked us out by writing us in His book before the world began. He started out with a predetermination to love us and on the basis of that, He marked us out and began a process that would deliver on the promise.
Our ending is pre-determined. It is the destiny of those that God foreknew to forever live in eternal glory with Him. To that end, we are predestined.
Then you come to a third word and that's the word
3. Calling
Now with this element, we move from eternity past into the present tense. In eternity past He predetermined and foreordained to love and marked out the objects of that foreordaining love.
In the future, beyond our calling, is justification and glorification.
But “calling” steps into time and in time He activates His foreordained, predestined plan by calling us.There are five of these terms here. Two precede calling and two follow it. So “calling” is the central truth.
Go back to verse 28 for a moment. "We know that all things work together, or God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are "the called.”
Now this doesn't mean all the people who heard some preacher or who heard some evangelist. This is not just an outward call. This is an inward call. This is the saving, redeeming call. This is John 6:44, this is the Father drawing. It is God’s invitation, and it's offered in time and it's delivered through the preaching of the gospel, and always accompanied by the Spirit of God.
So, God predetermined and foreordained to set His love upon us. He marked out specifically who they would be. That's predestination. And then in time He called us to be His own.
He began to move on your dark heart. He began to move on your blackened mind. He began to move on your spiritual deadness. He began to awaken and quicken and give understanding, and the Spirit of God began to move and you began to feel the conviction of sin. And when you heard the truth of the gospel, it began to make sense to you and that is all the calling of God as He begins to move you from death to life and from ignorance to truth and from darkness to light.
The gospel came and by the gospel He awakened your heart and you heard and you believed and you repented in order that you may be saved.
The call of God occurs in the context of an understanding of the gospel. You might hear it from a preacher, you might hear it from a teacher, you might read it in a book, you might hear it from the pages of Scripture, from the witness of a friend or family member, but the conviction of sin and the desire for righteousness and a comprehension of forgiveness and the understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the heart responds to all of that, that's the call of God.
And then comes the fourth great term,
4. Justified
This simply means to declare someone righteous. It's a legal term of standing before the bar of God and being declared righteous.
I don’t need to remind you that you and I are not righteous. I sin, I fail, I fall short, I don't love God perfectly with all my heart, soul, mind and strength all the time, or my neighbor as myself. I don't fulfill the law of God in perfection. But nonetheless, I stand as justified because God has declared me righteous.
Righteous means right. You say, "How did you ever get to be declared righteous?" Because God called me and I came and believed as He prompted my heart. When I did, the Scripture says, "He gave me the righteousness of Christ," Philippians 3.
You believe in Christ and God gives you righteousness. How did that happen?
On the cross God treated Jesus as if He had committed all the sins of all the people who had ever lived. God gave Jesus our sins and then turned around and gave us His righteousness. Since God's justice was satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ, sin needs no further punishment.
God having been satisfied because Christ bore our sins in His own body on the cross grants us His righteousness.
There needed to be a perfect life, He needed to fulfill all righteousness, live a perfect life so that perfect life could be credited to us.
That's the incredible truth of justification and it is by faith and faith alone. You don't earn it, you can't gain it, you can't win it. It's not an honor that you get because you performed in a certain way.
God declares you right before Him and treats you as if you lived the perfect life of Jesus Christ simply because you put your faith in Him. That happened because He called you and He drew you. He declares you forgiven, your sins paid for in Christ and you bear His righteousness.
This is incredible, isn't it? Foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, finally verse 30, "Whom He justified these He also
5. Glorified
Nobody is going to be left behind. Nobody gets off the salvation bus anywhere along this track.
In fact, it says in the past tense, "Whom He justified, these He also glorified," as if it had already happened. He’s saying something as if it happened because he's so sure that it will.
I couldn't begin the salvation process, I couldn’t save myself, I didn't save myself and I can't keep myself saved. But I don't have to worry about that because the God who chose me because of His predetermined love, the God who put the boundaries around my life and said, "This one belongs to Me," the God who called me, drew me out of the darkness, out of the death to put my trust in Jesus Christ with repentance, the God who then took care of my sins in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and imputed the righteousness of Christ to me is going to be the God that brings me to glory.
I didn't start this deal and I don't have the capability to finish it. Frankly, folks, I'm just along for the ride and this is SOME ride.
Let me quickly give you an OT illustration from Genesis 24: 4, 57, 60
Eventually, she is taken to Isaac, and they wed, and etc. . .
Could she have refused? Shed could have. That’s addressed in the narrative. Abraham talks about it early on, then Rebekah is given the opportunity to respond.
Had she not responded, she would have missed it all.
You say, "But what about people today who don't believe, aren't they responsible?" Yes.
If you don't believe, and you reject the gospel and you go to hell in your natural, blind, dead condition it is because you deserve it and you're going to bear the punishment for that because you're responsible for that.
You say, "I don't understand that. I don't understand if you go to heaven because you're chosen, how you can hold people responsible who go to hell cause they weren't chosen?"
It doesn't work like that. No one goes to hell because they weren’t chosen. They go to hell because they didn't believe.
You say, "But I don't understand that." Of course you don't understand that.
I don't understand that either because it's not understandable from a human standpoint.
But I know this: I can go to every sinner on the face of the earth and say, "Repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ...repent and be saved...why will you die? Choose you this day whom you will serve...Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, whosoever will let him come."
And all over the world, through the foolishness of preaching the gospel, the Father will draw people to Himself. And those who are chosen from the foundations of the world will believe, and others will die and go to Hell because they didn’t believe.
You say, "That seems like a contradiction."
Well, it seems like a contradiction because we're so puny in your comprehension. It’s not a problem to God. I don't know how it works.
But I know this: you have the doctrine of predestination over here on one track and you have the doctrine of human responsibility over here on another track and they run side-by-side and never contradict each other.
Some have this temptation to believe that God's up in heaven saying, "Okay, these are going to heaven and this bunch is going to hell.
It's not like that. Sinners are told to believe and if they don't believe they'll perish. Jesus says, "Where I go you're not going to be able to come because you don't believe on Me."
He also says, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." And if they don't believe that's their fault, they're guilty and they'll perish.
I don't understand how that all works together. I cannot. I just know that sinners are accountable to God to believe and I just know we're to go to every part of the earth and make sure every sinner hears the gospel and we're to beg them to be reconciled to God.
Therefore, I rejoice in the doctrine of predestination. I'm so thrilled with this plan, I'm so exhilarated, I'm so overwhelmed with it, I'm so grateful for it. It means that I’m in on what God is doing in my life. I’m so amazed and grateful and overwhelmed.
And beyond that it means I am guaranteed success in my endeavors as an evangelist and a preacher. Listen: it's going to happen the way God purposed it to happen. What a thrill to be engaged in a plan that will be fulfilled.
That’s why I always get excited at invitation time. Someone asked, don’t you get discouraged? Not at all. I get excited! Today may be the day when it all comes together for someone!
Just think: in a few moments, I’ll extend an invitation, and for someone, it’ll be there time. Someone that was in God’s mind before the foundations of the world, someone that God wrote down their name, He is going to call. And they are going to respond and in that moment their standing is going to change forever. They are going to spend eternity with God forever.
Who is it? God knows, and we are about to find out!
Let's pray.
